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Pump Tracks are all the craze. Instead of leaving it up to the users to figure out what to do with it, Red Bull, in association with Velosolutions, have set up a worldwide qualification system for the World Championships which will be held in Lisbon, Portugal mid October. Litterally tons of qualifying events worldwide have taken place already and on Saturday 18 September it was Holland's turn to find out who would go to the Red Bull UCI Pump Track World's next month. These qualifiers are open for any rider (17+) to enter and with time running out, Eddy Clerté took the Dutch opportunity to try qualify for the big one in Portugal 16-17 October 2021.

It's a big mix with BMX as well as MTB riders setting a time at the beginning of the race. The goal is to set a time fast enough to make it to the top 32. There's a second opportunity to if you could not set a quick enough time in your first run. Once the 32 fastest riders are selected, it's a head-to-head system afterwards where the first place qualifier races the rider who qualified in 32nd, number 2 races number 31, etc. After each phase half of the riders make it to the next round until 2 are left for the final race of the day.

This was the first Pump Track race I've visited and I was wondering how the start of the time trial and the start of the head-to-head phases would go. In fact, there is no starting gate, and the riders all have their chains on the bike. Basically it's a rolling start where you can gain as much speed as you like

34 Men and 11 Women registered for the 2021 Red Bull UCI Pump Track World Championships qualifier in Brussels, Belgium. Riders from Belgium, Netherlands, Latvia, France, Switzerland were racing the newly built Velosolutions pump track for a spot at the upcoming World Champs in Lisbon, Portugal. There was a fairly even split across BMX and MTB and a few Freestyle riders joined the fun. Aiko Gommers was absolutely unstoppable in a stacked Women's category, unbeatable in every single round saw her secure her World Final ticket with her best time of the day in at 11.622 with Olympian Elke Vanhoof taking home 2nd spot on the podium in the Women class.

In the Men's category, a small mistake saw top qualifier Mateo Colsenet take a fall in top 16, leaving Latvian rider Kristaps Veksa to take home his World Final ticket after his third place in the German Qualifier last weekend. Second place behind Veksa was Belgian rider Elias Verbinnen.

Next up qualifiers:
11 Sept. Leogang, Austria
18 Sept. Eindhoven, Netherlands
19 Sept. Jössefors, Sweden
25 Sept. Schüpfheim, Switzerland

Red Bull UCI Pump Track World Championships Qualifier - Berlin, Mellowpark, Germany. It is Vineta Petersone’s (Latvia) second win this season after she secured her World Final spot in Portugal at the end of 2020, leaving the World Final ticket for freestyle rider Lara Lessman from Germany to travel to the World Final but riders are Olympians. Lara secured a 6th at the Olympics after breaking her collarbone 6 weeks before she travelled to Tokyo. Vineta had the fastest time of the day in the Women’s category with 15.352

The men’s category came down to the wire between Philip Schaub (Germany) and Max von Eijndhoven (Netherlands) during the Big Final with both riders breaking the 14 second track mark, Max with a 13,935

With 8 woman on the start list and one of them being Australia's top Woman BMX athlete Saya Sakakibara in the mix it was going to be some hot racing. Down to our final 4 riders the race between MTB’r Cassie Voysey and BMX’r Johanna Jephcott would come down to 3/100ths of a second to decide 3rd and 4th place with spoils going to Cassie Voysey.

The finals saw a bigger gap between a solid and smooth looking Annaliese Rokov and Top BMXer Saya Sakakibara, both having clean runs it was the experience and power of Sakaibara that would take top honours by just over 1.5 seconds.

Several riders had issues navigating the tough and technical Paris Texas Velosolutions Pump Track. It was not a wide open track as you could hear brakes squeaking in the tight switchbacks. In contrast to last weekend in Springdale, AR where the steep and tall banked turns could hold the riders on track a little more. Top 16 men were lead by fastest riders KJ Romero (4th), Grant Lampson (3), Alec Bob (2) and Amakye Andersen with the top spot.

In the quarter finals two riders stood out with sub 23 second mark for the first time of the day. Alec Bob and Amake Andersen were opposite on the bracket board which looked to put them both in the Big Finals but there was more racing to go.

Red Bull UCI Pump Track World Championships qualifier Springdale notes:

• Friday practice saw very few riders as the weather delivered a steady sprinkle all day long.  At the end of the day the skies started to clear and the track began to dry up.
• Saturday morning set up brought more rain but by the time practice started it was clear that we would have a great day for racing with weather and racers filing in.
• Brackets of 16 riders were set after solo timed qualifying.  The pace was hot and riders were closely matched with top times in the low 30 second range.  The top qualifying riders where Grant Lampson in 4th, Collin Hudson in 3rd, Alec Bob in 2nd and the top qualifier on the day was